Monday, June 30, 2008

Belated 'Vacation' Pics

Every spring, I trek up to two great bead stores up in Maine. I had been trying to decide whether to make more than a 1 day affair of it, and the a/c breaking down in my building over a scorchingly hot weekend sealed the deal for me.

I started the weekend by driving up to Freeport to shop at The Beadin Path, and to do a bit of window shopping in town. I found these nice flowers and stopped to take pictures:

I then drove down to Portland and checked into my teensy hotel room.... the bathroom was down the hall and was hysterically small. Here is the glorious chandelier in my room:

And here is the room itself... I was standing in the 'closet', if you could even call it that. The room smelled like cheap carpet cleaner, but the a/c was delightfully arctic.

I stopped in at a yarn store on my way downtown, and they had a huge number of buttons.

I then strolled around downtown, and made sure to check out the waterfront.

What a very good name for a boat.

If you like a good lobster roll, get one here:

Who is that bewitching woman?

No, it is I who will be sightseeing YOU! (I got that little girl to wave at me, haha)

I don't have pictures of the bead spoils, but I assure you I stocked up on a good number of seed beads.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Knitting Trauma

Lately, I have been running into knitting problems. I was working on a hemp tank top, and realized that I didn't like the look of the gauge I was knitting it at... and ripped the whole thing out - days of work, on size 1 needles. I have knit back up 4 inches, but now am trying to decide if I REALLY want to do THAT pattern, or maybe I might want to do a different tank top pattern.

The tank top is on a time out for the moment.

Next, I found a very dismaying error in my Rusted Root the other night, when I was about 3/4 of the way done with it. Somehow, I added a stitch, and the error lies right in between my boobs. It is exceedingly noticeable., especially when the sweater is on. The problem spot is just to the left of the lace panel, about 4-5 full lace repeats down from the top:

In for a closer inspection:

A macro shot to further highlight the disturbing truth:

Right after I took these pictures, I ripped out about 10 inches of knitting. The error is even above the sleeve area. U.G.H.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Do you know how to pick beets?

Cuz I do! At least, as of today, I do!

I went to visit my friend Heather today, who lives in Newburyport. We started the day by going to a local farm, and we picked strawberries (a whoooole lot of them), lettuce, rhubarb, and beets. We asked another woman in the beet row, and she explained what to do... and then we were off and running!

We made a nice salad for lunch - lettuce, strawberries, a little red onion, some mozzarella and pine nuts, with a little balsamic vinegar sprinkled on top. Yum!

After that, we walked into town and strolled around for a long time, poking into stores, sitting for an inappropriately long time in furniture stores, and generally having a groovy old time.

I'm kinda pooped after being out in the sun all day - I'm going to sleep well tonight, and I'm okay with that!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Hmm.

I had my suspicions a couple of weeks ago, but a definite pattern has now emerged: It appears as though I have been unwittingly cultivating mosquitos in my car. Every time I get in, there are a couple of them lazily bluzzing around, waiting for an exposed part of me to munch on.

To their credit, they have chosen a great place to locate their operation. It's guaranteed that I'll show up almost every day, and when I'm in there, my ability to swat and smash is highly limited: I'm strapped in and immoble, and I'm concentrating on the road.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Yikes!

Near where I work, there is a low bridge that trains go over. It's under 12 feet tall, which means that a lot of 18 wheelers cannot get under it. Every once in a while, a truck gets stuck underneath. Yesterday was one of those days. As I was leaving work, there was a truck that had REALLY mangled the front/ top of the storage part of the truck. Dunno what the technical term for that is, really... anyway, there were little bits of truck in the road, even, perhaps fiberglass pieces? Cars were driving around the truck, and I did so, as well. However, traffic stopped, and I was stuck RIGHT underneath the lip of the bridge, right next to the crushy part of the truck. Suddenly, the guy hopped back into the truck and started backing up! Chunks of broken truck were raining down on my car, and I was completely helpless to do anything about it!

Finally, traffic moved and I got the heck out of there. I'm just glad a chunk didn't hit the windshield.

May I also mention the weather yesterday? How is 99 degrees in June an acceptable temperature for New England? Plus, two out of two banks agreed that it was 103. Completely gross. That's the kind of weather that a car air conditioner just can't get ahead of, you know? Bleh.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Tappa, tappa, tappa!

Last night, I had my first ever tap dancing lesson! It was really fun! I signed up for private lessons, so I'd learn nice and quick. I learned a few of the basic steps, like the shim sham and the Cincinnati - totally cool! It is a little awkward for now, but the teacher kept saying, 'this is the easiest class I have ever done!" So, I guess I'm catching the drift of it. ;-)